Hotel Chocolat, Primark and Friendly Plastic
It is absolutley fabulous to have Linda Peterson and Mariah, her daughter who are over from the States share my studio and collaborate on new ideas for Friendly Plastic. We have been working on a number of ideas, but most of the drizzly dark day has been taken up with perfecting our technique for making Pandora style beads. They started out very wobbly, but with 2 heads, some ingenuity, experimentation and a few expletives we think we have managed to come up with a good technique that we will share with everyone soon. The trick is getting the shape right, and you can see below that some of our first attempts were interestingly irregular.
Paperclips and kinky wire are the hanging devices of choice here, the beads have been dipped in Envirotex Lite, but I will be up for a bit yet, wiping their bottoms as the drips run down.
Mariah was not feeling her usual self, so we decided that a bit of retail therapy was in order. Most sane people would choose almost any other shop than the one that Linda and Mariah chose – Primark. They are addicts. They will very soon be able to map the entire country by the location of Primark stores! I thought shopping with my sister was a gruelling experience (she loves TK Max), but wandering around Primark takes the biscuit. I am not a good shopper, I make a better porter of shopping bags whilst everyone else does the shopping, but the expedition was not in vane, pyjamas, t shirts and plenty more made their way into the basket, and everyone was happy.
I took them on a short tour of Nottingham city centre and we found ourselves outside Accessorize and Hotel Chocolat. A quick whizz into the former proved disappointing, but a longer linger and tasting session in the latter put smiles back on their faces and chocolate in their bags. Happy campers all we came home to a playful dog and an evening of more Friendly Plastic in the studio.
I can’t wait to see how these are made – perhaps you can do a quick demo in March? or at least bring some to show us?
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Sounds Like SO much fun. Thanks for having the energy to write and send energy this Way. Lots og friendly wishes from Denmark!
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I l ike the big tubs of FP pellets Linda has on her shows – would like some of those 🙂
Gaz
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Love the look of those beads Liz. It sounds as if your day out was very satisfactory – I am a good coat and bag holder too! The last port of call would have been my favourite.
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Great to hear you are having fun (other than the Primani expedition!) and that your time together is producing new ideas and techniques. Those beads will be fab and I look forward to a closer view.
Jo x
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Primani wasn’t too bad really, I was just teasing Linda and Mariah!
I can certainly do something on the Pandora Bead Front for our March event Adrienne.
How big a tub or bag of FP Pellets are you after Gaz?
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It looks as if you and Linda had a great time, I’m not a shopper either. Those beads look really interesting. Roll on March.
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